He joined the law firm of South Carolina Congressman
Robert B. Elliott and
D. Augustus Straker. He also worked as professor of mathematics at the State Agricultural College (which was then a part of
Claflin University and later developed into
South Carolina State University). In 1877 he enrolled at
Princeton Theological Seminary. After two years, he was ordained and became pastor at Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church in
New York City. A close friend of
Booker T. Washington, Stewart followed his philosophies of self-reliance. He moved to
Liberia in 1883, to serve as a professor at
Liberia College. He was a participant in the March 5, 1897 meeting to celebrate the memory of
Frederick Douglass which founded the
American Negro Academy led by
Alexander Crummell. After two years, he returned to Brooklyn where he was president of the Brooklyn Literary Union, became active in the
Democratic Party, and was a member of the Brooklyn School Board from 1891 until 1894. As a member of the school board, he helped establish P.S. 83 in Weeksville as officially a mixed-race school and the first public school in the country to include an African American (Maritcha Lyons) as supervisor of new teachers. He also argued
civil rights cases before the New York courts. In 1898, Stewart moved to Hawaii, where he represented "all varieties of people in diverse Honolulu," and participated in the drafting of the Honolulu City Charter. In particular, Stewart presented Chinese people in immigration cases challenging the
Chinese Exclusion Act. == Writings ==